During solo, band, orchestral or choral performances, there is a need for surfaces or enclosures, conventionally termed acoustical shells, which surround musicians to allow projection of the performance toward an audience and to improve communication among performers. An optimally designed acoustical shell would reinforce and blend the sound projected toward the audience while also heightening the ability of the musicians to hear themselves and the other musicians in the ensemble thereby allowing the musicians to play in unison and with proper loudness balance between sections of the group.
Performance shells designed to enclose a performing group are generally known. However, to Applicant's knowledge, no such shell has ever been devised which contains all of the necessary modular sound absorbing, reflecting and diffusing elements variably configured to enhance the quality of a performance both for the musicians and the listening audience to an optimal degree. Most performance shells now known are merely large structures having walls, ceiling and an opening facing the audience. The walls and ceiling of these shells are normally hard, flat, purely reflective materials or partially diffusive geometrical surfaces offering limited bandwidth diffusion. Broad bandwidth or low frequency absorbing surfaces are rarely included. As such, a need has developed for a performance shell which not only encloses a performing group but also enhances the performance both for the musicians and for the audience.